


tanking

by INMH



Series: hc_bingo fanfiction fills 2020 [17]
Category: Heavy Rain
Genre: Drama, Gen, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Strong Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:47:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25278730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/INMH/pseuds/INMH
Summary: Norman’s pretty sure he’s screwed his brain.
Series: hc_bingo fanfiction fills 2020 [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1789369
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19





	tanking

“Well,” Norman whispered, staring at the little tanks as they rolled across his desk. “I’m completely fucked.”  
  
That really was the only conclusion one could reach once they started hallucinating little digital tanks all over their desk. Norman reached up to touch his face, careful to make sure that he wasn’t somehow still wearing ARI and that it was simply malfunctioning somehow, projecting the tanks when it hadn’t been commanded to.  
  
Nope.  
  
Nope, definitely still on the desk in front of him, right where he’d put them when he’d seen the tanks on the ARI desk and assumed it was malfunctioning.  
  
Well, thank God the expensive government-issued equipment wasn’t malfunctioning: Just Norman’s brain, which would require a lot less paperwork. And here he’d thought that ditching the triptocaine would be the end of his problems.  
 _  
I feel like I should be calling 911._  
  
Yeah, and say what, exactly? ‘Help, I’m seeing little silver tanks all over my desk because I overused highly experimental AI equipment?’ Christ, they’d hang up on him and assume he was just taking the piss out of them. And even if they did believe him, an ambulance coming to pick him up at work would be a sort of humiliation on par with being That Kid that threw up in front of the class. No, Norman would prefer not to suffer that particular indignity, not when he’d just gotten commended for his work on the Origami Killer case.  
  
Still, he was hallucinating. Actually, actively hallucinating objects that, had he not known exactly what they were and where they were from, he would not have been able to distinguish as illusions. If there was any time to call and ambulance and demand a brain-scan, now would be the time. Knowing Norman’s luck, he’d end up having a brain tumor or a goddamn hemorrhage.  
  
He rocked his chair back and forth for a minute, considering. The tanks were still very much there, rolling around and occasionally pointing their guns at him. He glanced at the clock: **3:37.** Then he looked back to the tanks: There were three of them, all bold and bright the way they were in ARI.  
  
“If you guys haven’t started to disappear by 3:47, I’m calling an ambulance,” Norman remarked out loud. “Embarrassment be damned.”  
  
Maybe not a great sign to be talking to the hallucinations, but it took some of the tension out of the situation.  
  
And so Norman sat back and waited.  
  
He tried shutting his eyes and counting to one-hundred; he opened them again, and all three tanks were still present. He tried toggling ARI on and off, and removed the glove from his hand to ensure that the technology wasn’t in contact with him and wasn’t actively fucking with his head. At five minutes, the tanks were still rolling around without a care, whirring and clicking.  
  
Norman sighed, squeezing his eyes shut and pressing on them with his fingers. He decided to keep his eyes shut for as long as he could stand it. _Please, for the love of God, I just need them to go away._  
  
If the tanks didn’t go away, he would have to see a doctor. And aside from the inherent embarrassment of the whole office knowing his business, it occurred to Norman that experiencing hallucinations didn’t present a great prognosis for his career, either. He could explain away one incident from overusing ARI during the Origami Killer case, but what if it became a regular thing? What if this was permanent?  
  
His whole career would be down the tubes in seconds.  
  
You could go to rehab for drug use, but you couldn’t just will a brain injury into submission.  
 _  
If they go away, I will never pick up ARI again,_ Norman thought, digging his thumbs into the bridge of his nose. _Never. I will go back to pen and paper and photographs, or just a goddamn cell phone like everyone else. I am never tangling with this shit again, not when it could permanently mess up my brain. It’s not worth my job, and it’s not worth spending the rest of my life seeing shit that isn’t there._  
 ** _  
Never again._**  
  
The first thing he realized was that the sounds had stopped; he couldn’t hear the tanks whirring anymore. He waited, wondering if they had just stopped moving, but the sounds did not return.  
  
Norman took a deep breath, and then opened his eyes.  
  
After a split second’s observation, Norman’s body sagged with unbelievable relief: The tanks were gone. **3:52** , the clock read. It had taken just about fifteen minutes or so for the hallucinations to disappear, so now Norman had a benchmark for if it ever happened again.  
  
But it wasn’t going to happen again, because he wasn’t going to be using ARI anymore. No way: Next time he might end up hallucinating something more consuming, something that might trick Norman into thinking he’s somewhere he’s not. He doesn’t need to be hallucinating about the piano lounge when he’s in the middle of a meeting, especially if there are going to be auditory hallucinations with the visual ones.  
 _  
What am I going to say to the director?_  
  
Whether he liked it or not anymore, Norman had been given ARI for a reason. He would have to come up with a decent explanation for why he was giving it up, or he’d end up on leave anyway. The man had a nose for when his agents weren’t right, and seeing mini-tanks rolling around on your desk definitely wasn’t _right._  
  
Norman eyed the glasses and glove with a careful eye. Working without them would be a damn sight harder than using traditional implements. He’d gotten so accustomed to having all the information he needed at the drop of a hat, arranged in such a way that he could really immerse himself in it. It felt pathetic, but it really felt like he was losing something in giving up ARI, in refusing to use it anymore.  
  
Maybe… Maybe he could find a way to-  
 _  
NO._  
  
No. No, no, no.  
  
This was how it always went with ARI and the triptocaine: Always the longing to go back to it, always the excuses for why Norman shouldn’t have to give them up. Well, there was no excuse now, and in fact it was the best imaginable time to give up ARI since he was finishing up one case and hadn’t been assigned a new one yet. He would have time to get used to doing it the old way.  
 _  
You’ll learn to like it_ , Norman told himself, grabbing ARI and the glove and shoving them into a drawer in his desk. He’d come up with something for the director. He’d find a way to save face and keep working.  
  
But like the triptocaine, ARI was gone for good.  
  
It had to be, for his own sake.  
  
-End


End file.
